Invalid argument when converting float to datetime

Question

I have to get a datetime from a float using Python. I am tryint to use the following code:

import time
print (time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime(float(63650571169.50261))))

But when executing this code, I get an error:

OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument

The sys.float_info.max displays 1.7976931348623157e+308.

How do I convert this float number into a datetime?

Answer 1

Try this :

import datetime
print datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(63650571169.50261)
#3987-01-03 05:12:49.502609

Answer 2

It looks like your OS is using the ISO 8601:2004 (clause 4.3.2.1 The Gregorian calendar) with the epoch at Year 0. This can be converted by applying the correct zero offset as:

Code:

import datetime as dt

# define some constants
epoch = dt.datetime(1970, 1, 1)
gregorian_8601_to_unix_epoch = 62167305600

def gregorian_8601_to_datetime(gregorian_8601_seconds):

    # get number of seconds from epoch
    from_epoch = gregorian_8601_seconds - gregorian_8601_to_unix_epoch

    # convert to python datetime
    return epoch + dt.timedelta(seconds=from_epoch)

Test Code:

print(gregorian_8601_to_datetime(63650571169.50261))

Results:

2017-01-01 10:12:49.502609